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by tosca1390



Category: West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-21
Updated: 2010-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:58:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Her father says that she just has to come home, to make him happy. Ellie doesn’t understand what home he means.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> For the [Awesome Ladies Ficathon](http://ineffort.livejournal.com/199061.html) at [](http://ineffort.livejournal.com/profile)[**ineffort**](http://ineffort.livejournal.com/)'s journal.

*

Her father says that she just has to come home, to make him happy.

Ellie doesn’t understand what home he means.

It makes her cry, because he’s trying, _trying_ , and then with the doctors and the specialties and _this is the good part_. She’s sure it’s the truth, what he’s saying, she’s sure he means it, and she loves him for it.

But she was telling the truth, too, when she said _I don’t know how to make you happy, Dad, you’ll have to ask Liz or Zoey about that_. She doesn’t know how to do it, and she’s always wanted to. Liz tries to guide her, always, but in a condescending-older-sibling way, and Zoey just doesn’t know what to say.

So when he says she just has to come home, she can’t help but cry and cry, silently through the rest of _Dial M for Murder_ , as her father the President of the United States rambles on about the actors and Hitchcock and then whether any of these people would know what oncology was. It’s embarrassing to have a wet face and itchy eyes with her dad in the chair next to her, and he knows it’s because of him, but she can’t stop. She hasn’t cried like this in forever, she hadn’t been a crying child, or prone to emotional outbursts, and the knotting tensions between her father and herself have left her ragged inside, and now she’s just _tired_ of it.

The movie ends; she waits in her wide, cushion-y seat as her father shows everyone out, not wanting to show her face to his staff. She plays with the remaining dregs of popcorn in her bucket, the hair falling against her damp cheek, sticking faintly.

She misses her mother, now. Her mother, who was just as combative and fiery as her father could be, the two of them and their epic love story, the telling of which her other sisters never tired to hear of. But Abbey had her quiet moments, her soft moments. Ellie knows she has that from Abbey, but wonders where everything else came from, because sometimes, when she was younger, she used to wonder if she was really the offspring of Jed Bartlett. Abbey always knew how to bridge the gap between Ellie and Jed, but she wasn’t here until the morning, and there was a whole night ahead of her now.

“Have you stayed here before?”

Her father was back, standing over her with his hands stuffed in his front pockets, a shock of hair close to falling over his furrowed brow. She stands and brushes herself off, nodding. “Yes, Dad. Inauguration. Once or twice more,” she says, hating the thickness of her voice.

He nods. “I just wondered if we had a room for you. We do have a room for you, then.”

She sighs, tucking her hair behind her ears. “There are hundreds of rooms here, I’m sure I could find somewhere to sleep.”

He smiles slightly, something boyish and young in his face, like when her mom was around, or Zoey or Liz. “Come on then.”

Something tightens in her throat, and she steps back a moment. “Dad, I still don’t know—“

“I’m not firing her, Ellie. Because you’re right,” he interrupts smoothly, gently, and she can see a facet of herself reflected in his gaze. “And she was right. So now, I’m right too.”

She looks down just for a moment, habitually; but the sound of her father’s rebuke in the most powerful office in the country echoed harshly in her mind, and she looked up into his face again. “Won’t that look bad for you?”

He looks off to the side, shrugs. “Good, bad, it was the right thing to do. Besides, I don’t mind manipulating the American government to get my kids to like me.”

Now she can’t help a smile, small and timid. “I am sorry—“

Startling her, he puts an arm around her shoulder and pulls her close, warm and solid. His sweatshirt still smelled like the farmhouse in New Hampshire. “It’s all right.”

She presses her nose into his shoulder, breathing in and relaxing into him because now, he wasn’t the President or the governor or whatever—now, it was like Christmas morning at home and he’s just her dad. “Okay,” she murmurs, voice muffled.

He kisses the top of her head and begins to walk them down the aisle. “Want some cake? Ice cream?”

Honestly, she wants a drink, but it is the White House, and it is her dad, who still thinks she's twelve sometimes, so—“Ice cream,” she says with a smile.

“Good. And no telling Mom. She still doesn’t know about all the candy I gave you all,” he said as the agent opened the door for them.

She’s twenty-four years old, but she still laughs, and keeps her face close to his sweatshirt, because this—this feels like a piece of home.

*


End file.
